


If I Only Could

by avocadosamevil



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Multi, Short One Shot, everyone's dead au, well everyone except for dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4699829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadosamevil/pseuds/avocadosamevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They fell like angels, blazing in their beauty and rebellious hearts. Lighting the sky in shades of hope. But then the light died. It streaked it's way into nothingness. And the beauty died too."<br/>Where Dave Strider is the only one left, and the guilt is unending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Only Could

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, so this is an itty-bitty fic inspired by "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush. Just a warning, it's pretty gory. -.-

The night was cold, with a starless sky crushing any hope in gray waves, bitterly saying that everyone must feel the same. A jealous and anxious child, growing with fear and eating away at the little light produced by the flame. Despite the miles of lava beneath his feet, he was chilled by the darkness of the sky. It filled his eyes, creating dark pools, and snuck it's way into his heart, declaring itself leader and enveloping all other feeling, creating nothing.  
Dave Strider was the only one left. He felt the cloud of isolation and loneliness hanging over his head, heavy with regret. If only I had saved them, he thought. If only.  
But he didn't. He was completely and utterly alone. Darker thoughts took over, changing visions of saving to visions of dying alongside.  
Dave almost cried out at the utter irony: when he was younger, he had wanted to be alone more than anything. Away from his brother, away from those horrid people, and away from the world. But like a man lost in the dark, he had met someone with a flashlight, who gave him a supportive smile and showed him the way.  
The ones who showed him the light had truly been miracle workers. To the rest of the world, they were simply teenagers, doomed to choices of drugs and pressure and hope. But to Dave, they were the world.  
And he never got to tell them.  
They fell like angels, blazing in their beauty and rebellious hearts. Lighting the sky in shades of hope. But then the light died. It streaked into nothingness. And the beauty died too. They loved like teenagers, fiery and strong, until the storms came and washed the flame away. Dave bit back tears, even though it didn't matter. No one could see him.  
He remembered John like one remembers and old scar or wound; he remembered the pain. No memory of him was without an image of John's face streaked in blood, his eyes empty and open, staring into an empty and merciless sky. Dave couldn't even remember the face he made when he laughed, the face he made when Dave kissed that one spot, right against his jaw, and the giggles that ensued. The only memory that remained was of John Egbert, the most wonderful person to ever enter Dave's life, strung up by the neck in a tree.  
Dave let the memory come, and he saw the others that hung with John; to one side of him was Rose, her pale hands caked in mud and emerald-toned blood, the same shade of liquid covering the torso of Kanaya, who swung in the wind behind Rose. To John's other side was Jade, her glasses cracked and hanging askew, black bruises staining the curve of her neck. Above Dave's three best friends were Roxy, Dirk, Jane, and Jake, identical in bruises, bloodstains, and vacant expressions. The twelve trolls who had helped Dave and his friends were scattered in what seemed to be no particular pattern across the tree, their multi-colored blood dripping and staining the dark grass.  
Until he saw what was left, it didn't truly register to him that all of his friends were dead. These were simply puppets, they couldn't be real, they were too fake and light and utterly distant, too dead to be the lively people he had once known. But his eyes followed the steady stream of crimson blood dripping from the body of Karkat, one of the only trolls he could truly relate to, and saw what the murderer had left.  
"I WAS ALREADY THERE."  
The words were scrawled in a messy fashion, punctuated by the dripping blood. Fuchsias and teals and burgundys and red, so much red, spread those words into the grass, as if the assassin had squeezed his victims of their blood and painted the words carelessly.  
Dave saw the words, the image, every time he blinked. He could not shake his feeling of dread and guilt.  
So he really wasn't too upset, or pained, by the burn after he jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. That was cheery. Feel free to ask me questions about plot holes n' stuff. I just wanted to get this gory fic out of my system.


End file.
